By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: September 16, 2014 4:25 pm ET
Updated: September 16, 2014 4:29 pm ET
Three college students have earned scholarships through the Society of Plastics Engineers’ Thermoforming Division, division officials announced at the Thermoforming Conference in Schaumburg.
Winners are:
Drake Stephens, a senior at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan., received the Segen Griep Memorial Scholarship. Stephens plans to graduate next spring with a bachelor’s degree in plastics engineering technology, with an emphasis on design and manufacturing. He is minoring in chemistry.
Earlier, Stephens received an associate degree from Allen Community College, and did an internship at Charloma Inc., a custom plastics processor with a thermoforming operation in Cherryville, Kan. This summer he is interning at Orbis Corp., which runs an injection molding facility in Osage City, Kan.
Paul Woodson, a senior mechanical engineering student at Kettering University in Flint, Mich., earned the Thermoforming Division Memorial Scholarship.
Woodson also is pursuing the university’s recently developed minor in plastics engineering, which includes classes in polymer science, mold design and plastics processing.
He did a co-op job with Magna Exteriors, putting his plastics skills to work.
Ann Macherkevich, an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering at Kettering University, is vice president of the school’s newly formed Plastics Engineering Club.
Her co-op experience is with Chrysler Group LLC, where she has worked since the fall of 2012, in the supplier quality department. Currently, she is on the interior team for Ram trucks, dealing with hard-trim components.
Macherkevich is completing a thesis on developing strategies to control gloss levels on interior hard-trim polypropylenes and thermoplastic olefins. | 
